BACKGROUND:

Our client set their sights on achieving a response rate of greater than 20% on a call for action (CFA) issue advocacy campaign. While the mobilization goals of any particular client may vary across campaigns depending on the issue and membership size, accomplishing a 20% goal, or one similar to it, is no simple task.

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Our client has over 20,000 REALTORS® as part of their membership base.

 

SOLUTION & TOOLS:

Leveraging REAL Strategies’ REALTOR Party Plus Activist Database/Member Dashboard

 

HOW OUR CLIENT UTILIZED OUR TOOLS:

We, REAL Strategies, worked with our polling partner, American Strategies, and with our client to survey their membership and gauge the members’ demonstrated level of activism. From the survey results, our research and analytics team built a statewide membership model that identifies a member’s willingness to engage, act and become involved.

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From there, our client made a list of membership types (targets) they thought would be most likely to respond to a call for action:

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• Members who have a strong history of taking action (filtered data from the database: c4a>5)

• Members who have voted in the last three general elections (data included in the database)

• Members that scored high on the activism scale (data included in the database)

• Members that have signed up for their texting service (data included in the database)

• Political Action Committee (PAC) Investors & Major Investors (data from the PAC model and/or Aristotle)

• Association Committee and Board members at the state and local levels

• Members that attend client’s conferences & State Hill Days

• Members that attended advocacy/legislative update continuing education programs

• Real estate brokers

 

With the list they came up with, they developed specific messaging for each targeted group with subject lines tailored to each group (For example, a different message for Major Investors than for Brokers; i.e. Subject: “Another Perk for Major Investors”, …a courtesy message for our most dedicated members alerting them to the proposal and CFA…). Our client’s Government Affairs Director (GAD) also developed a comprehensive Call for Action Communications and Responsibility Plan for state staff and local association executives (AEs)/GADs to follow.  It was updated weekly with information regarding the planning and logistics of supportive messaging (including texting, social media, broker messages and emails) along with creating lists of TARGETED members that had not yet taken action.

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Sending the same email to ALL non-responding members repeatedly brings diminishing returns. If a long-term member had never taken action, our client would only email them once or twice. On the other hand, members with a higher probability of taking action were targeted more heavily through customized messaging techniques. This resulted in our client achieving much higher returns in their outreach efforts. Gift card prize incentives were also frequently offered depending on how the call for action was performing.

 

TIME:

Pulling the targeted members from the database and other lists took about one-hour.

 

PARTIES INVOLVED:

Our client had access to our activist database. The GAD developed, then pulled, the targets and subsequently crafted unique messaging. They shared the comprehensive call for action plan with local AEs/GADs along with the targeted lists of non-respondents.

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RESULTS:

Since implementing this plan, our client successfully hit the 20+ percent goal for their advocacy campaigns.

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KEY TAKE AWAYS:

• Targeting members via the RPP activist database with tailored messaging helps boost call for action response rates. 

• REAL Strategies can help associations with comprehensive CFA plans.